John Christian ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote
> OPEN "DICT","MY.FILE" TO @DICT ELSE STOP
> (@DICT is required to work with virtual fields)
>
> READ @RECORD FROM F.MY.FILE,KV.MY.FILE ELSE PRINT "ERROR
> F.MY.FILE: ID = ":KV.MY.FILE
> (@RECORD required. Virtual fields are in MY.FILE)
>
> CLIENT.NAME = {DONOR.NAME}
> (Uses virtual field DONOR.NAME in MY.FILE)
Just to be clear - the curly braces {DONOR.NAME} notation is just a UniData
shorthand for the CALCULATE() function. There is also the Prime/UniVerse
compatible ITYPE() function but it is IMHO not nearly so nice to work with.
And also, to be clear, I completely disagree with those who suggest that
accessing a dictionary item by name from inside a BASIC program is a bad
idea because of either inefficiency or some other mythical danger. Code
reuse is good. Unreservedly good. I simply don't subscribe to the NIH (not
invented here) approach.
If you can't code the dictionary item efficiently and access it from BASIC,
then code it efficiently in BASIC as a FUNCTION/SUBROUTINE and access it
from the dictionary via SUBR. Either way it is far better to get the same
result from multiple means than to be hyper-efficient, but have subtle
differences in the boundary conditions.
Cheers,
Ken
Bill Stinocher wrote:
> Hello all. Being new to UniData, I hope that maybe someone
> can help me.
> How do you read an I descriptor in a UniBasic program? The IBM manual
> gives me a hint (looking at the CALCULATE command), but the example
> given uses a select on the entire file. I am looking for a way to read
> the actual data and the I descriptor within a loop without using a
> select. I'm familiar with opening, reading, updating, etc. the data
> portion of a file, but not the dictionary.
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